This is What You Want
by RevalisPyross
Summary: Some things don't last forever, no matter how much you want them to. Even when you want nothing more than to hold on, you have to let go. This is Shizuru letting go.  Rating for using the F word once and a sexual allusion.


This is What You Want

Author's Note: It's been so long since I've written one of these that it feels weird. This will be my last offering to the Mai HiME fandom unless I actually get around to finishing any of the one-shots sitting on my hard-drive. If you were still waiting for the next instalment of _The Devil's Throne_ or _mAd hoUsE _(if anyone even remembers them...) then I apologise that I won't be continuing with them; it had been an unintended hiatus to begin with, but truthfully my muse for the series has ran away. The only reason I'm uploading this story is because I wrote pretty much all but two paragraphs a year ago and I tinkered around with it today, so think of it as a farewell gift. (If anyone wants to rant at me solely about TDT, please do it in a PM and not in a review for this story.)

**Disclaimer: The Mai-series belongs to Sunrise.**

It's over. Years of happiness, arguments and love are gone, swept away to later be neatly filed away into that box labelled 'Old Memories'. Our relationship, my world, is over.

I can hear you upstairs shuffling about, collecting your things as I sit rigidly on the couch. I dare not move. I know that if I do, all of my composure will crumble and I will become a sobbing wreck. I know that I would rush upstairs and fling myself at you, clutch your legs and beg you not to go, not to leave me. But I can't. For your sake I must not do the one thing that I desire to do the most.

This is what you want.

My gaze sweeps towards the hallway that led out to the front door and I send the already packed bags that are waiting for departure a heated glare. I remember a time where we had made love in that exact spot after I came back from a particularly dreary business trip. I had only been gone a week but every second I was away from you was increasingly torturous, and when I was finally in the taxi on my way home time passed unbearably slow when all I wanted was to hold you in my arms.

I hadn't had a chance to even fish for my keys when the door jerked open and there you stood gazing at me with those feral green eyes, your long black hair tied away from your face into a simple ponytail and adorned in the old, oil-splattered clothes you wore when you worked on your bike. It was one of the times when you were at your most beautiful, and you know well my darling that you are far from ugly.

I remember the way you grabbed my arm in that firm yet gentle grip of yours and tugged me inside, taking a mere moment to slam the door behind me before you crashed your lips against mine in a way that took my breath away. Our clothes skittered away underneath our touch and soon we were making love. Yes, it was rather desperate and animalistic how our bodies clashed together, almost painful in our search for release, but our desire was only what the other could fulfil. The emotion was too deep to be merely classed as 'sex' or 'fucking'. It was much more than that.

But that was a long time ago. You're leaving. That spark that once gleamed in your eyes as you looked at me has faded and the warmth that you regard me with is only a pittance compared to what used to be. I've tried to bring that fire back, the one that thawed the ice around your heart to begin with. Tried everything I possibly could. Nothing worked. I could clearly see you were trying too, although whether it was for me or for you I don't know. But we can't deny it any longer and now I must let go.

We've grown too far apart.

When did it start? What was the catalyst? You know I would do anything, _anything_ to please you. So was there something I could have done? Was it my own short-comings that drove the wedge between us? All that I know is that one day I noticed that you would face away from me when you slept, towards the window, barely balancing on the edge, when it didn't seem that long ago that we would wake as entangled as we were the night before. When did that change?

Is there... Could it be that you fell in love with another? Do you long for another's touch? Another's mouth whispering hot promises in your ear, calling you theirs and saying the words 'I love you'? I guess that doesn't matter. The only thing that does is you don't love _me._

I hear you move from our... _my_ bedroom and descend the stairs, your usual dash slowed by the heavy case you are lugging. I turn my eyes away from the hallway to stare at the glass table before me. I dare not look at you.

Did you pack that jacket I bought you for your birthday? How about the necklace I gave you on our fifth anniversary that you nearly always wear? Is that picture of us that Mai took of us still in your wallet, the one where you have me pulled into your lap, wrapping me in an easy embrace as we beam at the camera?

I blink rapidly in my attempt to hold back the tears, my grip on my knees tightening painfully. I love you. I love you I love you I love you. I've never stopped loving you. Please don't leave me. I want to say all this so desperately that holding the words back is killing me, splitting my heart open from the inside as your departure tears into it from the outside.

"Shizuru?" You call, voice tentative yet weary as if you've grown tired of being concerned for me. You probably have. "Shizuru, I'm leaving." Pause. What more do you want from me? "I... I guess I'll see you around."

Silence. Then a small sigh before the sound of rustling bags as you pick them up, no doubt trying to carry them all at once as you usually do with heavy items. I want to call out and admonish you, tease you for being my strong lover. I want to look up and see your annoyed yet flustered expression as you awkwardly juggle the bags in your arms. I want to hear you ask for help in that huffy way you do when you're irritated, then when I approach you to take a couple from you I want you to smile the way you used to at me, drop your possessions and hold me in your arms. I want you to kiss me, say you're not really leaving, that you've changed your mind. I want what's happening now to be a bad nightmare that I can walk away from.

But it's not. My nightmare is very much real.

"Natsuki!" Your name tumbles from my lips although I hadn't meant to speak. I hear you pause, listening. Here was my chance to tell you that I don't want you to go, that I will always love you and ask you to stay so we can try to work it out. "...You'll take care, won't you?"

"Yeah... You too," you return, opening the front door later and I can feel the wind rush in, carrying the scent of rain as it falls outside. "I'll call you sometime. Goodbye, Shizuru."

"G-," the word lodges in my throat, prohibiting me from mouthing what I don't wish to utter. Do I have to say it? Is that why haven't you gone yet? Don't make me say it. Please stay with me? I don't want to say it.

I didn't have to say it. The door clicks behind you. The tears finally release from my eyes. The sob wrenches its way from my throat. The world shatters.

Gone. You're gone.


End file.
